MEBANE — City officials, the Humane Society of Alamance County and even the governor’s office have received dozens of calls and emails concerning a dog in Mebane a woman believes is being neglected, but authorities say is fine.

Leah Lawrence said she began noticing months ago that her neighbor’s dog was tied to a short leash and frequently without food and water.

She called the Mebane Police Department May 27 to report the dog’s condition, and said the police came to check on the dog, spoke with the dog’s owners and then left. Lawrence said she began going into the neighbor’s yard to give the dog food and water, and the neighbors said they had to keep the dog outside because it was in heat.

On June 18, Lawrence said the dog’s feet were tangled in the leash and it was unable to move and without food and water in the hot weather. She said she called the police again and an officer responded, this time saying the conditions weren’t OK for the animal and an animal control officer would come take a statement on the issue, but that they had to give the neighbors time to make things right. The officer told her if she went on the neighbor’s property again, she would be charged with trespassing.

After her neighbor came over, yelling, and asked if Lawrence was the one who had been calling police, Lawrence said she called officers again for help.

“That time, they seemed to believe this was just some sort of domestic dispute or neighborly feud,” Lawrence said. “I decided the cops weren’t going to help any.”

The Times-News was unable to reach the dog’s owner for comment on the situation.

Lawrence said she began filming the dog’s conditions and taking photos of the animal, searching online for various organizations that could help her save the dog. She said she has video evidence that the dog has gone more than 48 hours without any water at all, with its metal bucket tipped over.

“At this point, the dog owner is not in violation of any general statutes of North Carolina, nor of any Mebane City ordinances,” said Allen Byrd, assistant chief of the Mebane Police Department. Byrd said officers who checked on the animal saw that it had food, water, and adequate space to move around and get under shelter.

Lawrence recently contacted Dogs Deserve Better, an organization based in Smithfield, Va., with an active social media community. Robin Budin, of the organization, posted photos and information about the dog on the group’s Facebook page Saturday, asking that people call the Mebane police, Humane Society, Animal Control and Gov. Pat McCrory’s office, since he is a dog lover.

Page 2 of 2 - “I don’t believe the police,” Budin said, noting that police said the animal’s condition was OK. “I don’t know who the good old boys there are, but nobody is actually getting in their car and driving over and looking.”

Budin said she heard back from Mayor Pro Tem Patty Philipps, who said she would look into the situation and talk with police.

As of Wednesday evening, there were 280 comments on Budin’s Dogs Deserve Better Facebook post about the Mebane dog, and 225 people had shared the post on their Facebook pages.

Caitlin Daly, director of the Humane Society of Alamance County, said she got around 100 calls on Monday from people around the country who had seen the post on the Dogs Deserve Better Facebook page, which provided phone numbers and email addresses for the Mebane officials, animal service agencies, governor’s office and local TV news stations.

“Monday was like a never-ending cycle of phone calls,” Daly said. “I would hang up the phone and then it would start ringing again.”

She said it seems like the dog’s condition might be “a misunderstanding that went really out of hand,” and based on photos she has seen of the dog, the animal doesn’t look terribly thin.

Daly said she did tell police to pass word along to the dog’s owners that the Humane Society would spay the dog for free, so the owners could keep it inside if they were concerned about it being in heat.

Since the influx of calls, Byrd said officers from the police department have spoken with the owners, who have removed the dog from the outdoor area.

“They said there are no laws being broken,” Lawrence said. “That it’s perfectly legal to leave a dog on a chain since I’m not on the Orange County side of the city,” which prohibits dog owners from leaving their animals on leashes.

According to Mebane city ordinance, “if an animal is kept on a rope, chain or other tether, it shall be of sufficient length to allow the animal to enter its shelter and allow it rest in a space that’s free of animal waste.”

Byrd said Officer S.B. Terwilliger with Animal Control estimated the rope as being at least 10 feet. He said the rope may have gotten tied up and been 3 feet at one point, but the dog was able to move into shelter as needed.

Lawrence said her neighbors have since put up a fence prohibiting her from being able to look in their yard, but doesn’t think the dog is still there.

“I feel sorry for the animal,” Lawrence said. “If she were still (outside), I would not be done with this.”